


a dream of a dream

by angelb0y



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Post-LWW, blame mr staples, fuck cs lewis like... let these kids be happy, i mean im not gonna let them be happy either but uh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-18 21:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12396858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelb0y/pseuds/angelb0y
Summary: This world no longer belonged to the four Pevensies, and they did not belong to it.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> hi whats up im ur local kid who uhhh has no motivation to write ever but yall get this bullshit which is basically gonna be just. sad sad sad so have fun w that.

_ So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamp-post, and before they had gone twenty more, they noticed that they were making their way not through branches but through coats. And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and they were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes.  _

 

The first thing Susan noticed was the weight of her hair. The thick braids that reached past the small of her back, even at her adult height of almost six feet, were gone. It was immediately obvious to her as she spilled onto the floor with her siblings that something was wrong, this was not their home.

 

Her hair was gone. The half pound of braids that she had worn from adolescence to adulthood were gone. There were no curling locks of hair adrift in the room, nothing reminiscent of the day when Lucy sheared her hair to match the line of her chin. The braids were gone, vanished, and so was her crown. For a moment, the weight of her country left too.

 

They fell through the doors in a tangle, but Peter twisted, reached for his sword, and found nothing. Rhindon had stayed by his side since he killed the wolf, some fifteen years ago. He caught himself, as not to fall onto Lucy (who had gone ahead of himself and Susan) with his left arm- something he had not been able to do since the skirmishes after the battle of Beruna, all those years ago, when he had not made it back to Lucy quite in time for her cordial to fully repair his lacerated muscle. He’d taken an arrow to his shield early on, and had been seconds too slow to block a dwarf’s well calculated blow.  But his shoulder no longer ached in the wet cold of the autumn afternoon they’d set out in, and the sharp smell of pine had faded.

 

Lucy fell out of the wardrobe, and into a child’s body. Not  _ her _ body. Her body had calluses across her palms and a scar wrapping from her clavicle to her hip that would always ache in the wet Western cold. Her body wouldn’t fall from the wardrobe, she should’ve been able to catch herself before she even passed the edge. Lucy fell out of the wardrobe, and into a child’s body. 

 

Edmund found himself with a second chance—though he did not know it. All he knew was that his home had been ripped away, again. 

 

This world no longer belonged to the four Pevensies, and they did not belong to it.


	2. in a hostile land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So they were alone again. They had no plans, no army, no home, they had nothing here. They all recognized this, and it terrified each of them so very thoroughly that their grim looks mirrored those on the day they faced the White Witch.

The shock of it was truly awful.

 

All four sat on the floor of the wardrobe room for two hours, before any of them moved. But, as the setting sun began to wash over the walls of the room, Susan found herself suddenly reanimated.

 

“We must…” Here she paused to raise herself from the floor then walked—as if in a trance—to the wardrobe. “We must go back… I have an audience with….”  

She reached into the wardrobe, and her hand hit the polished applewood back.

“No… no, we must go home…” She was whispering, staring in horror at the barrier between her and her life. “Peter… brother, aid me! We must….” She pushed at the wood, as hard as her twelve year old arms could manage; when that did nothing, she began to beat her fists upon it, and scratch at the unyielding surface. The room was silent again, with only the soft noises of Lucy’s sobs and Susan’s battering of the wardrobe. Susan’s hands grew bloody; but she did not stop. Peter had made his way over to her, and joined listlessly. Another hour passed.

 

The silence was only broken by the sound of approaching footsteps, which drew Edmund quickly onto his feet, his battle instincts pulling him out of his despairing reverie. 

 

“Children? Where have you gone off to? Mrs. Macready says you must come for supper.” Ivy, the youngest servant of the house, could be heard calling. 

But, the footsteps passed by the door, and Edmund once again slumped to the floor. He pushed the heels of his palms onto his closed eyes, and tried to dispel the relentless images of his home in chaos. So vivid were these visions, that he soon found himself with an awful headache—the kind that comes from holding in tears. 

 

The four children, for that is what they had become again, stewed in their despair. The older two had given up on their attempts to break through the back of the wardrobe, and Lucy had cried her eyes dry. So, they sat and watched sunlight creep across the floor.

 

Eventually, Margaret found them. She happened to be at that age where people tend to think themselves very much superior to those only a bit younger than them, so when she opened the door to find the Pevensies, all she saw was ‘poor little mites’ who must be ‘homesick for their mum”. She brought them downstairs, and handed out mugs of tea. She cooed over Lucy, and finally ( _ finally _ ) left to tell Mrs. Macready what had happened.

 

So they were alone again. They had no plans, no army, no home, they had nothing here. They all recognized this, and it terrified each of them so very thoroughly that their grim looks mirrored those on the day they faced the White Witch.

 

Susan spoke first, “This maid, she is young. Perhaps closest to your age, fair sister.”

 

“Aye, you are right in that. She has not seen a day past seventeen.” Lucy had her eyes closed, and the tear tracks were plain against her skin. “What would you have me do, good queen?” 

 

“She is a bit young, that is true.” Susan frowned, reworking the details of the plan forming in her mind. “But, still, I say that you win her friendship, and we will have an ally in this–” 

 

Here, Edmund cut in, “My dear Lady, I do not know if this is the action that we should undertake.”

“What do you mean? What do  _ you _ propose, Edmund?” Her words were sharp here, as they were all holding themselves together by the barest of means.

 

“We must do what they expect of us. She seems to think us commoners and children, we must use that. Also, did you mark her strange way of speaking? That we must all learn too. As dear Sallowpad would say, do not tell them what they do not know, unless it is to our advantage.” His nerves, like his sisters, were frayed, but his training under the great beasts of Narnia shone through. “First, we must acquaint ourselves with this manse.”

 

Finally, the High King spoke, “Then we must go and explore.”

 

With that, it was decided. They gathered themselves, and some means of defense, then were on their way into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAA IM SO FUCKIN SORRY GUYS IM. BIG DEPRESSION BUT I FINALLY GOT THIS EDITED 2 POST! AND IM ACTUALLY GONNA POST THE NEXT PART BEFORE A FUCKING MONTH PASSES!! as always kudos r my lifeblood and comments make me extremely happy

**Author's Note:**

> also this chapter is basically just the prologue im gonna put up the actual first chapter sometime soon(ish) (hopefully) (comments make me update faster please validate me)


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